EPTGermany (IX): Cheap or expensive? - Page 2
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DropBear
Australia4353 Posts
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zul
Germany5427 Posts
Public transportation is expensive indeed, if you buy single tickets. On the other hand I can use all of Hamburgs public transportation Systems for 50 Euro/month, which is a fair and reasonable price compared to the average income. Also, dont forget that people who still cannot afford those tickets because they are unemployed or students, get even cheaper tickets. | ||
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Tommylew
Wales2717 Posts
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Xiron
Germany1233 Posts
On October 11 2012 20:18 zul wrote: I agree with most of the stuff, but you can buy water for 25 cent/litre almost everywhere. Public transportation is expensive indeed, if you buy single tickets. On the other hand I can use all of Hamburgs public transportation Systems for 50 Euro/month, which is a fair and reasonable price compared to the average income. Also, dont forget that people who still cannot afford those tickets because they are unemployed or students, get even cheaper tickets. I'm living in Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) where a single ticket for a short bus ride is like 1,60. If I had to pay for my way to uni and back, I'd be around 4,5€ a day, or 135€ a month. Thankfully I'm a student, so I get to ride the bus for free. I really liked this blog, you described the costs of living in germany very well. | ||
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Atom Cannister
Germany380 Posts
Maybe it's because I'm Irish and used to being ripped off. Also, rent in Saxony is very cheap. Lovely accent too, right?  | ||
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Gonzo103
Germany220 Posts
On October 11 2012 19:42 REDBLUEGREEN wrote: Uhmmmm actually if I remember correctly Greenpeace did a test of fruit and vegetables in German Supermarkets and Lidl and Aldi got 1st and 2nd place... Yes maybe its the case if u compare fruits and vegtables from German supermarkets. Compared with fruits and vegtables u can get in a french or italian supermarket, the quality is bad (in most cases). And don´t forget most of the very cheap stuff is comming from spain, cousing there huge enviromental and social problems. However í´m pretty happy with the development we have in germany (at least in stuttgart). Nowadays you will find a lot of wholefood shop´s where u can buy good Meat and good Fruits and Vegtables. | ||
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Skilledblob
Germany3392 Posts
On October 11 2012 20:03 Temerarious Trout wrote: Could you write about German cuisine? I've read somewhere that Germans mix Sprite/7-Up with some beer as a refreshment after sports. it's called Radler (cyclist) and it's a mix of beer and sprite. You can also get Diesel which is a mix of beer and cola. I guess some people might get it after sports but I think it's not that common but you can certainly see people drink these two on a hot summer day. On October 11 2012 20:39 Atom Cannister wrote: I think inner-city transport is pretty cheap. €5 for a day ticket in Dresden, and it's for both tram and bus. Maybe it's because I'm Irish and used to being ripped off. Also, rent in Saxony is very cheap. Lovely accent too, right? Saxony is great especially the Dresden / Leipzig area. Though some germans have some kind of superiority complex about saxons because of their accent. While at the same time those people might speak with the most horrible bavarian accent you can think of *shudder* | ||
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Zetter
Germany629 Posts
On October 11 2012 19:29 zuqbu wrote: kassel… that reminds me of the one thing that's outrageously priced and hasn't been mentioned yet: parking. i paid 20 euros for a few hours some weeks ago while visiting the documenta. the closer you want to park to a POI the higher the fees, culminating in astronomical fares at airport terminals around €2 for 1/4 hour. If you ever visit Kassel again you can just park in the Karlsauen. It's very near the central district and it's free. Though finding a parking spot somewhere else is just pure horror. I don't think I agree fully with the public transportation thing. Of course if you buy single tickets it's expensive like hell, but if you are a regular driver (with Bahn card or Semesterticket) it's cheap. My sister can drive in all of Hesse as well as to every city near it with everything up to IC for ca. 35 Euros per month. And I can drive in almost all of Hesse with everything up to RE for ca. 20 Euros per month. If I'd visit my family in Northern Hesse with a car, I'd pay the same amount of money for just one trip. =D | ||
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emythrel
United Kingdom2599 Posts
How much are prescription drugs in Germany? I was under the impression that like the UK you have a national health system, here we pay currently £7.65 per prescription and if you are lucky (like myself) and have a family member who works at your doctors surgery (my mother is Practice manager at mine) or just a nice doctor, you can get prescribed double or triple quantity prescriptions that will cost you the same as the normal amount (i.e normally they prescribe 14 pills on one prescription but I often get up to 48 on a single prescription). The only expensive thing in the UK healthwise is dentistry and even thats a bargain, I recently had a bunch of fillings and a few of my wisdom teeth out all for £48.50. If you need crowns or replacement teeth you will pay about £120 but thats still pretty cheap really. If you go private having 1 tooth removed will cost you £50...... I think the UK is quite similar in some regards to Germany and different in others. Food can be very cheap or very expensive, depends which super market you go to. We have Aldi/Lidl at which you pay virtually nothing, Asda/Tesco/Sainsbury's (where the vast majority of people shop) that are cheap but also fairly good quality and then Waitrose who are for the posh people! Petrol and Diesel are fairly equally priced these days but a litre will set you back £1.40-1.50 varying by region and even varying within the same town, everyone knows where the cheapest fuel is in their town and generally use that place if possible. Rent, well its not cheap anywhere in England but in Wales its fairly good. In anywhere London you will pay minimum £500 for a 1 bedroom flat unless you get really lucky while in the outskirts Cardiff (Wales capitol) my friend rents a 3 bedroom house for £450 per month.... I'm moving to Wales soon lol. Back home in Essex (near London) I was paying £600pm for a 2 bed flat, add on top of that council tax of around £100pm and amenities (Water, Gas, Electric) of another £60-100pm and it all adds up! Trains are definitely cheaper and faster in the UK than driving, especially if you live in london. You can get a travelcard that allows you full travel on all buses and trains for 1 day within London for about £7-8 with discounts it can be under £5 per day. Which if you take in to account the cost of fuel, wear and tear on your car, extra travel time (London is a bitch to drive around on weekdays), the congestion charge (something like £8 per day last time I had to pay, someone correct me if im wrong) and the cost of car insurance and it all adds up to public transport being the cheaper option for most people. | ||
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Kahurz
Germany35 Posts
On October 11 2012 20:03 Temerarious Trout wrote: Could you write about German cuisine? I've read somewhere that Germans mix Sprite/7-Up with some beer as a refreshment after sports. That's called a "Radler" it is very refreshing and has the advantage that you don't get hammered if you are really thirsty and down 2 or 3 half litres of it in a short time. | ||
zatic
Zurich15326 Posts
On October 11 2012 19:53 disciple wrote: I think electronics in Germany are very expensive, other than that I pretty much agree on the food and booze stuff. Rents are reasonable too, but night life is absurdly expensive imo, or Im just drinking too much. My first years in Germany I was restricting myself to 20€ for a night out which is fair enough if you are drinking beer, which Im not a big fan of. Going to a decent bar and having a good time sets me back 50€ and I pretty much hate myself in the morning. It used to be the case that electronics were cheaper in the US, but I don't think this is the case anymore. Go to amazon.com and compare electronics prices to amazon.de. There is still a difference, but it's small. And electronics in Germany are again cheaper than in most other European countries. Night life you are just wrong though: It's significantly cheaper in Germany than pretty much any other developed country. Hell, an entire night out in Germany is a club entrance cover in other countries. | ||
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emythrel
United Kingdom2599 Posts
On October 11 2012 21:01 Kahurz wrote: That's called a "Radler" it is very refreshing and has the advantage that you don't get hammered if you are really thirsty and down 2 or 3 half litres of it in a short time. Here its called a Shandy lol. Its just lemonade and beer.... been around for a very long time! | ||
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emythrel
United Kingdom2599 Posts
On October 11 2012 21:04 zatic wrote: It used to be the case that electronics were cheaper in the US, but I don't think this is the case anymore. Go to amazon.com and compare electronics prices to amazon.de. There is still a difference, but it's small. And electronics in Germany are again cheaper than in most other European countries. Night life you are just wrong though: It's significantly cheaper in Germany than pretty much any other developed country. Hell, an entire night out in Germany is a club entrance cover in other countries. In the UK most clubs are cheap to get in to, maybe £10 for a really stupidly expsenive club in london. But the drinks are EXPENSIVE, a round of 4 drinks can cost over £20!!!!!!!!! I've been to a few clubs that charge massive cover fees but they are usually exclusive places meant for the famous and the rich, you average nightclub here doesn't charge an entry fee before 11pm and is about £4-5 after that time. Oh to live in Germany!!!!! Better beer and cheaper to boot! | ||
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zuqbu
Germany797 Posts
On October 11 2012 19:53 Liquid`TLO wrote: + Show Spoiler + On October 11 2012 19:48 zuqbu wrote: http://marktcheck.greenpeace.at/4379.98.html translated with google that merely compares pesticides,which isn't really enough for a general statement about quality. you are right obviously, still i think this was the study in question. i would go out and say the average quality of fresh vegetables and fruits in german supermarkets is not very good. whenever i have the time i will go to a small afghan or turkish store which offer much tastier stuff  On October 11 2012 20:00 zatic wrote: Funny enough, the car reimport business was exactly what gave me the idea for this blog. However, after some research, you really can't say that cars are generally more expensive than in most other developed countries. First is the reason there is car reporting in the first place: Higher sales and luxury taxes in other countries (Netherlands, Denmark). New German cars are actually not cheaper there at all, the reimporting is only profitable because importers get the luxury tax back. German cars are equal or more expensive in most Nordic countries, all of Asia, and stupidly bazillion times more expensive in Australia. The more important reason though is that you get a whole different product when you buy a new car in Germany compared to other countries that sell significantly lower (say, the US). In Germany cars are all order-to-make, meaning the customer configures their car out of a wide variety of options, and the manufacturer will produce that exact individual car a couple of weeks or months later. Obviously that is a different product than just going to a sales rep, looking what's on the parking lot and driving off with your new stock car 1 hour later. You can see the difference also in used car market prices - here again Germany is not considerably more expensive, because the individually made German cars (that were initially more expensive than stock cars) lose resell value much more rapidly, so it evens out. Bottom line: German cars are certainly not cheap in Germany, especially compared to stock car markets like the US. But still there are a number of countries were German cars are equally or even more expensive, so that is why I didn't include it in the list. fair enough! i didn't know about the luxury tax refund, thanks for the explanation! On October 11 2012 20:43 Zetter wrote: If you ever visit Kassel again you can just park in the Karlsauen. It's very near the central district and it's free. Though finding a parking spot somewhere else is just pure horror. well, i just visit Kassel once in every five years so i'm not that familiar with the parking situation. i will look out for it next time – but i fear during the documenta it's near impossible to find a parking spot without fees. | ||
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flexgd
183 Posts
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zatic
Zurich15326 Posts
On October 11 2012 21:22 flexgd wrote: what about internet and phone billing? i would think we have fairly cheap internet compared to say the u.s. but id think scandinavia is even cheaper. Germany used to be really good in terms of internet and phone about 8 years ago, just when DSL lines were really widespread and the competition started pushing prices down. However, most countries have caught up, and now Germany is probably somewhere average in terms of Internet and phone availability and pricing. | ||
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StarVe
Germany13591 Posts
Those prices seemed like Autobahntankstellenpreise!  Or I guess big cities, but I'm usually taking the train to go there, so I haven't seen much there. | ||
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Cuddle
Sweden1345 Posts
On October 11 2012 21:22 flexgd wrote: what about internet and phone billing? i would think we have fairly cheap internet compared to say the u.s. but id think scandinavia is even cheaper. I pay 150 SEK to the infrastructure owner and 170 SEK for 100/100 Mbps line to provider per month. I could pay 700 SEK for 1000/1000 Mbps but I've yet to fabricate the need for this...YET! In total that is 320 SEK ($47.5) per month for 100/100 Mbps with no limits on data. (10/10 is $42/month) There are no plans with limitations to data traffic. Phone is tricky, not a lot of people have land line any more. IP-telephone (which is what land line in Sweden is mostly nowadays) is $7.5/month from my ISP and the rates are: Connection: $0.1 Within Sweden: $0.015/min To cellphone: $0.15/min Free to people with same provider. | ||
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flexgd
183 Posts
On October 11 2012 21:36 Cuddle wrote: I pay 150 SEK to the infrastructure owner and 170 SEK for 100/100 Mbps line to provider per month. I could pay 700 SEK for 1000/1000 Mbps but I've yet to fabricate the need for this...YET! In total that is 320 SEK ($47.5) per month for 100/100 Mbps with no limits on data. (10/10 is $42/month) There are no plans with limitations to data traffic. Phone is tricky, not a lot of people have land line any more. IP-telephone (which is what land line in Sweden is mostly nowadays) is $7.5/month from my ISP and the rates are: Connection: $0.1 Within Sweden: $0.015/min To cellphone: $0.15/min Free to people with same provider. thats somewhat comparable except for the upstream. its really hard to find upstream >10mbps in germany. i got my internet combined with my cable contract and its 44,95€ for 120mbps/10mbps + cabletv | ||
disciple
9070 Posts
On October 11 2012 21:04 zatic wrote: It used to be the case that electronics were cheaper in the US, but I don't think this is the case anymore. Go to amazon.com and compare electronics prices to amazon.de. There is still a difference, but it's small. And electronics in Germany are again cheaper than in most other European countries. Night life you are just wrong though: It's significantly cheaper in Germany than pretty much any other developed country. Hell, an entire night out in Germany is a club entrance cover in other countries. what do you mean by developed country? I can compare the prices with places like Porto and Prague which being tourist cities and all had a mark up of 150-200% on the drinks in the bars, markup in Germany is beyond 300% - 20€ on a 4cl decent single malt whiskey is just not happening there. Sure Germany clubs and bars are cheaper compared with Scandinavia and the UK, and relatively speaking having the income here in mind its ok, but its certainly not something to impress a tourist or a foreigner with, unlike the other things that you mention which make quite an impression to an outsider initially | ||
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